


coming forth by day

by akamine_chan



Category: Egyptian Mythology, The Sandman
Genre: Afterlife, Cats, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-28 22:47:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/679726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamine_chan/pseuds/akamine_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Later, she feels it again, tiny pinpricks across her awareness and she wakes more fully, confused.  Her realm is dusty and forgotten, the once well-known paths long unused.  The only visitors to her domain are the lost dreamers, who'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up here.</p>
            </blockquote>





	coming forth by day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabulaxrasa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabulaxrasa/gifts).



> Warning for the off-screen, undescribed death of an original cat character.
> 
> See the end notes for further explanations about the Egyptology details.
> 
> The story was heavily influenced by the story _A Dream of a Thousand Cats_ and by the character Bast, both from the _Sandman_ comics. Also, the comic [Scaredy Cat](http://heatherfranzen.tumblr.com/post/65607355443/1los-heather-franzen-one-year-ago-i-finished) by Heather Franzen.
> 
> Thanks to Ande for the beta, and Tab for her graciousness.

She feels a distant stirring, like faint ripples in a still pond.

The disturbance rouses her from her slumber, her curiosity briefly piqued before the weight of time and indifference snuffs it out and she returns to her endless sleep.

Later, she feels it again, tiny pinpricks across her awareness and she wakes more fully, confused. Her realm is dusty and forgotten, the once well-known paths long unused. The only visitors to her domain are the lost dreamers, who'd taken a wrong turn somewhere and ended up here.

Sometimes the dreamers remember, and when they wake they tell wondrous tales of ancient temples and cities gleaming with gold. And for a whisper of a moment, she feels _alive_ again.

This feels different.

She sits up, extending her senses to the limits of her world, like a hunter searching for prey, but doesn't find anything. There's nothing left but echoes and ashes and lost memories. She knows that.

Sleep calls to her, and she lets herself go, drifting.

She wakes again, this time with a name caught in her throat, _her_ name. She says it out loud, _naming_ herself, and she shivers at the rush of life that courses through her.

And still, that tiny presence tickles at the back of her awareness, something new and different, and she becomes determined to find it. Shifting, she assumes her oldest form, lean and muscled, whiskered and fanged, tawny and powerful. She runs, and she can feel the heat of the savannah against her fur, sinking into her muscles and soothing the ache of a shape long abandoned for something smaller.

There's nothing, though, just the faintest scent of _other_ but it's so diffuse she can't follow it back to its source.

She retires to her palace and waits.

It comes again, that sense of something new, and she can feel it more clearly, now, ghostly paws in the heart of her city. She takes on her favorite form, upright and beautiful, queen and goddess, and searches.

The road-stones are smooth and cool under her bare feet, and the magnificent trees that line the road rustle their leaves as she walks by. With every step the world feels more solid, and her feet stir up dust motes that dance in the air.

She follows the ephemeral traces of the other and it leads through the marketplace, west to the Temple, _her_ Temple. No one has worshiped here in millennia, and she hasn't set foot inside in just as long. 

On the ground she finds a mummified cat, the wrappings rough and coarse, not at all like the usual fine linens, held together by some kind of sticky strapping. Carefully inked on the strapping, black as kohl, are the glyphs for _htp di nsw_ , familiar from every funerary offering. _An offering given by the king. . ._ She traces the glyphs carefully with a clawed finger. 

Under that, on another bit of strap is written _nfr_ , symbolized by a cross over a circle. _Zero_. A name. "Interesting," she purrs, her voice rough and scratchy. There are several clay jugs next to the little wrapped _s3h_ , filled with milk, and a pile of rabbit-fur scraps shaped to resemble mice. "Hrrr."

The _s3h_ wriggles a little, surprising her. Her ears flatten back, setting her ear rings to chiming softly. Carefully, she uses a claw to tear at the wrappings until the she sees the _miw_ , struggling to free himself from the cloth. 

"Meow." He's long-haired and cream colored, with a black mask across his face and eyes as blue as the water that surrounds the temple island. There's a smudge of white fur between his eyes, and his tongue is pink when he licks his nose.

He's an impossibility, a living _miw_ here by the Temple entrance, but she's charmed by him, shining bright and loud in her silent realm. She sits next to him, scratching between his ears and feeling his purr vibrate under her hand. He feels alive, and she shivers a little as the whole of her land seems to quietly wake.

"Mrow?" he asks, before turning to walk toward the Temple entrance. It's pitch black in the Temple; there’s no one left to light the lamps to chase away the darkness. He waits until she regains her feet and leads her forward, tail curling, into the Temple, which is suddenly not as dark as it once was.

-fin-

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this story comes from an ancient Egyptian [funerary text](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_book_of_the_dead), later entitled the _Book of the Dead_.
> 
>  _htp di nsw_ is the traditional Old Egyptian start of an [offering formula](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egyptian_offering_formula), which translates to _an offering given by the king_.
> 
>  _s3h_ [translates](http://forum.egyptiandreams.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=926) to the physical, preserved body of the dead, so a mummy.
> 
>  _miw_ is the Egyptian word for cat.
> 
>  _nfr_ is possibly the Egyptian word for zero. There is still [some debate](http://www.math.buffalo.edu/mad/Ancient-Africa/mad_ancient_egypt_zero.html) about this.
> 
> The description of Bastet's Temple comes from Herodotus' [description](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubastis#History) of the festival of Bubastis.


End file.
